The Game
by cjr09
Summary: The Vexos- they lose.


They make a betting pool, one day, while they're playing the Vexos version of the Earth game 'Go Fish' that Lync had learned.

(The Vexos version is basically the same game as the original, just with more violence involved, and the pool is scrap metal and shiny stones and bits of planets they'd collected, plus some cookies someone had found or stolen from somewhere. The Vexos versions of games are a lot like the Vexos themselves.)

They have betting pools for a lot of things; for almost everything, actually, whether it's inconsequential or a one-time event or things they should take much more seriously than they actually do. They have betting pools on the fate of characters in TV shows, outcomes of brawls, when the next upgrade for the mechanical Bakugan will be and what it will do, what Zenoheld's endgame is and how many of the personnel still on-base are actually robots versus how many are not.

They make a betting pool over who'll die first. Lync and Mylene bet on Shadow, then Hydron, then Lync, then Volt and Mylene. Mylene switches herself before Volt, but the rest remain the same. Shadow bets Hydron, himself, Lync, Volt and then Mylene. Lync and Shadow both insist that she be at the end, because even if the Brawlers start to take this seriously- which the Vexos, clearly, don't- and use actual weapons, Mylene's got enough rage to keep fighting even if she's been shot full of bullet holes. Lync'd die by misstep, by slipping up in a lie, by wearing a mask that didn't fit quite right; Shadow'd go by doing something stupid, something that fits him, should be expected, but it wasn't and he'd die. The order on those two could switch around easily, so they have to elaborate on it for the sake of their arguments, and no one disagrees.

Volt gives them all his Disappointed Glare when Lync and Shadow try and get him in on it. Hydron doesn't stay around them often, if any of them can help it- the Prince included- so they don't get his input.

Lync keeps whining for Volt's bet until Volt gets fed up and leaves to go scavenge for a drink with a grudgingly fond roll of his eyes. He still throws his hand of cards at Lync when he gets up, so it's not too fond (or maybe more so?), so Lync sticks out his tongue at the eldest and swiftly merges Volt's cards into his own.

They're quiet, for a moment, after Volt leaves. Despite Volt's years with the Vexos, he's soft in a way the other three aren't, new to a game that the others were _born_ to play, were _made_ playing. It's the game of war and peace and life and death and it's in their very blood and bones and breath. The others know the game like it's the beat of their own questionably-existent hearts.

Volt's different from Lync, Mylene and Shadow in such a way that there is simply no changing, no bridging the gap that yawns ever bigger. He's fundamentally _good_ , he tries to do the right thing, makes effort to be kind and thoughtful. He's _good._

They are quiet, for a moment. A moment of mourning for something, someone, an event that is yet to pass. Mylene bites down on her bottom lip, a deliberate act of pain rather than focus, draws her legs into herself with coiled, spring-loaded tension, the cock of a gun, slide of a knife losing its sheath. Lync's eyes close with the kind of effort that forces deep lines across his face, makes him look so much older than he is but shows how much he knows. Shadow's long nails dig into the flesh of his leg with the kind of force that would tear through the cloth, the skin, the muscle and marrow below. They are still in a way they so very rarely are.

They have played this game for a long time.

They all know Volt will die first. The good ones always do.

By the time he comes back, they've rearranged themselves into a coordinated heap on the floor, blankets and pillows and other soft things they'd dragged from various abandoned rooms on the surface of Ves Palace strewn about haphazardly into a mismatched, comfortable nest. Lync is curled protectively around what was the Go Fish pool and arguing with Mylene over what movie they should watch while keeping Shadow's long claws at bay; the Darkus brawler splayed on his stomach and trying to swipe a cookie, legs pinned under Mylene's where she'd tossed them carelessly over his, relaxed despite giving the heated debate with Lync her all.

Volt rolls his eyes, again, and settles somewhere in the middle of them all with practiced ease. The others shift to accommodate him, until he steals the remote and turns on a "compromise movie" by holding the remote too high above his head for anyone else to reach; at that point, they've all but thrown themselves across him in an attempt fight for it back. No one really moves off when they all eventually, reluctantly agree what to watch, tangled up in each other and the game and the story on-screen.

No one mentions the betting pool to Volt again. They know the game; they can have this, for a while. They can have movie nights and video game tournaments and fall asleep on the floor and support each other as Zenoheld's wrath grows worse, and worse, and worse, until the snapping point. They won't get forever, they won't get happy endings. They can pretend that Volt will be able to go back and see his family, someday, that they'll be happy and safe and well-off as Volt was promised so long ago. They can pretend the rest of them have homes and lives and people waiting for them with open arms, like Volt should have, with carefully places lies and omission and steely silence. They can pretend that the time they'll get is enough.

It won't be. The others are selfish, and arrogant, and they know the game and they know that there's- there's nothing they can do. They want more, for themselves, for him, and they can't get or give it. They know the game.

They lost when they joined the Vexos. The reasons don't matter to the game. The people don't matter to the game. The game won't be satisfied, not until they're gone, and still won't long after that. The game is forever, the game has forever. The Vexos lost and they don't.

The Vexos have a betting pool and a silent agreement that none of them be the ones to win.

Volt is good, he deserves better. So much more than he has, than he's getting. He won't get it, by the rules of the game. The only thing he can get and the other Vexos can give is false hope and a place somewhere near the bottom of the betting pool.

None of them mind losing, anyway.


End file.
